You said this city has a beating heart...

Last Friday, my boyfriend and I had a little day trip to San Diego, which ended with us going to see Death Cab for Cutie in Solana Beach.

First we went to Balboa park. We walked around for the most part but also went to the Japanese Friendship Garden, which was small but quaint. I liked the Koi pond there.
I think we're going to have to make another trip in the near future. There's a Richard Avedon exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art that I want to see.

You can check out the rest of the pictures here.

After spending a few hours at Balboa Park, we decided to check out this cupcake shop located in Hillcrest, that I found out about on-line a few days before. Called Babycakes it was this cute little cupcake shop inside of an old house right on 5th. Their cupcakes were muffin sided and very yummy. We chose three of them, the Blood Orange, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Pistachio.

My favorite was the Blood Orange. It was a moist white cake with hints of orange in it. It also had some blueberries on the bottom of the cake, a raspberry/citrus jelly in the middle and topped off with cream cheese frosting. It was so good.

The Peanut Butter and Jelly was my boyfriends favorite. That was a chocolate cake with grape jelly in the center and peanut butter frosting. I think we were both mixed about the Pistachio cupcake, which was had bits of pistachio in a green hued white cake with green butter cream frosting. I think it was the bits of pistachio in the cupcake that threw us off. Overall, I would go back there the next time I was in Hillcrest.

After our snack of delicious cupcakes, we made our way to the Gaslamp District to get some dinner at the Red Pearl Kitchen. We were still a little full from our cupcake excursion, that we just ordered appetizers. So we decided to get the Vegetable Spring Rolls and the Thai Chili-Glazed Calamari. Little did we know that we went during Happy Hour, so they gave us even more food, for free. So we also got two of their Spicy Tuna Tempura Eggplant and Pan-Fried Potstickers. Plus a little bowl of their Wok-Roasted Edamame. We didn't even get to finish the appetizers we ordered. Too bad we didn't get any pictures of it, cause it was all really good.

When we finished all can of our dinner, we finally made the trek up the 5 Freeway, to the Belly Up Tavern in the beach town of Solana Beach. I was really excited that Death Cab was going to play a show there. Not only is the venue really small and intimate, but I'd be able to take pictures there. However, as we pulled up near the venue, we saw signs plastered along the venue wall stating, "No Cameras or Recording Devices During the Concert." I was a little disappointed cause I wanted to take pictures. But I didn't want to risk it, so I left the camera in the car. Good thing I did cause during the show, didn't matter if they had a camera or cell phone, if security caught you taking pictures or filming, it got confiscated right away.

Overall it was a wonderful show. The crowd was good along with the set-list. You can check out the set-list for the show here. My boyfriend was fascinated by the lighting of the show, which I thought was cute. Plus he got me a shirt, which I will post soon.

It was a great day trip and I hope to do it again real soon.